KarMel
Scholarship 2007
|
“Anonymous Testing” By Sharaon
Ulery |
Desciption of Submission: A young man goes with a friend to get tested for HIV
at a free clinic after having unprotected sex with his boyfriend.
I stared around the office, taking in my
surroundings. There was a poster with one guy asking another "Got
condoms?" Oh, God. At least they were clearly gay-friendly. I closed my
eyes briefly and then headed over to the sign in desk, with Nathan following right
behind me. The receptionist said, "Hello, boys. Anonymous
HIV testing? Please take a number, and we'll be with you shortly."
I took the paper she held out mutely, and followed Nathan to a sagging blue
couch. We plopped down onto opposite ends of the couch, barely looking at each
other.
"Thanks for coming with me," I said
quietly.
"Hey, no problem. But... I just don't
understand, though! I mean, after all those lectures at the
I put my head back and closed my eyes. "I dunno,
man."
"This
is boring, man. Let's head out. You wanna come over to my house? No one's at
home..." Sure, why not? It's not like it was our first time together. We'd
been going out for nearly three months. It was a Friday night, he looked hot, we were horny. Nothing unusual.
"Look, we were being safe. It's not my
fault..."
The first time we had sex. We were at BJ's house, no one else was home.
My parents had no idea where I was, of course. They knew we'd been out shooting
baskets; they didn't know we ever left the park. We were both on his bed,
wanting each other. I reached over to him. "No, stop! I... shouldn't we
use, you know, some protection?" I didn't want to. I was such a fool! But
he put it on anyway. What was I going to do, pull it off him?
A couple of days later BJ told me he had tested positive for HIV nearly
a year ago. He didn't even know the guy's name! I was furious, but I guess I
understand now. "I'm sorry about it, sorrier than I've ever been in my
life. I never meant... it was a stupid one-time mistake. Are... are you really
upset?" he explained. I forgave him, of course. He's so damn cute when he
apologizes for anything. "It doesn't have to harm our relationship at all.
With condoms and everything, I mean, as long as we use protection, we're
perfectly safe!"
"We've always used protection! We didn't do
anything wrong. It's so unfair."
Right, Dominique. Of course I didn’t do anything
wrong! Poor me... life is out to get me, right? I've
taken enough sex ed. classes to know there's hardly a guarantee. "There is
no form of birth control or STD protection that is one hundred percent certain.
Remember, abstinence is the only way to be safe." My 8th
grade health teacher. And my 9th and 10th
and 11th grade ones. And I'm sure my 12th grade
teacher will say the same. What was I thinking? To have sex with a guy that I
knew was HIV positive? And then...
"The condom tore! It's not like I could do
anything at that point, right?"
There. That was a question, so it's not a lie. Again, with the sex ed. classes. It's not like I paid that
much attention, but I'm pretty sure we hadn't done anything risky yet at that
point.
“I know, Dominique. It’s okay. I’m not trying to
accuse you of anything.” He looked at me as if pleading to me to just finish
the story.
There was a pregnant pause. "Nathan? I, I wasn't
quite truthful. I... well, we could have stopped."
"What?!" Nathan cried. Around the office, heads turned.
"Nathan!" I
scream-whispered. "What do you think you're doing? Everybody's
staring at us now."
"Sorry, man. I wasn't thinking..." He
lowered his voice to match mine at a low whisper. "But what do you mean,
you could have stopped?"
"I... well, he hadn't...” I closed my eyes
again. “I mean that there had been no penetration at that point. When it tore."
"What the &$%! were you thinking? Why didn't you stop, then?"
I should have stopped him. Of course I should have.
How on earth could I have been stupid enough not to stop? I knew! That's what's
killing me- I knew. I knew I shouldn't have been doing anything with him to
begin with, and I knew to stop when it tore. But I didn't. And I can't explain,
even to myself, why on earth I did that. I certainly could never explain it to
Nathan. He’s a virgin! He could never understand the rush. You're just...
caught up in the moment, I guess.
"It's not that easy.... You wouldn't
understand."
"Try me." It was more of a command than a
request.
"No, I really can't. It's... you've never had
sex! How can I explain to a virgin? It's beyond anything you can imagine. You
don't want to stop! It's like... you're beyond reason. You know you
"should" or "shouldn't" do stuff, but it's like ‘Hell, who
really cares? It doesn't matter that much,' and then you've forgotten about it.
Until afterward, and then... well, if you're as dumb as I am,
you end up here."
His face showed total incomprehension.
BJ left a
zillion messages on my voice mail, telling me to call back. When I hadn't
called back by Sunday afternoon, he was very worried. He called Nathan, my best
friend from school, whom he barely even knew and didn't particularly like, to see if he knew what was up with me. BJ didn't give him
any specifics, just said he wondered why I hadn't called back, but apparently
he worried Nathan enough that he immediately jogged over to my house. To have
my mom greet him with "Oh, Nathan, are you and Dominique going out
somewhere then? I'm so glad. Try to make sure he eats something while you're
out, would you, please?" He said briefly that we didn't have anything
planned, but didn't even bother to try to explain his presence at our house,
just barged upstairs to my room. He found me sitting with all the blinds down,
curtains closed, and lights off, staring off into space. I'd been sitting there
without moving for over three hours.
I didn't want to talk to anyone about it, but finally, through a
combination of coaxing, cajoling, and threatening me, he finally made me admit
that I was afraid I might be HIV positive, that BJ was, and we had made a
mistake. He was shocked, surprised; he didn't understand at all. At least he
didn't wait to hear the rest of the story, just told me I was leaving —
"Right now!" — to go get tested. "I'll
drive you to this place I know that does free AIDS testing. Unless — would you
prefer for BJ to come with you?" No, I didn't want to see BJ right then.
And well, here we are. And apparently hearing the rest of the story wasn't
helping him understand any.
"Well... oh, okay."
"You don't understand, do you? Not one
bit..." I shook my head at him.
"Well, not really, no," Nathan admitted.
"But I'll try to understand, and I'll do everything I can for you, even if
I don't understand how it'll help. Really, whatever you need..."
"Yeah, right, man. Going all sappy on me, huh?
All I need now is clean blood, and I won't know if I have that till they
finally see me. It's been a while, you know... How long are we gonna have to
sit here?"
"I don't know; I've never been here before! What
do you think?"
"Yeah, yeah..." We both stared off into
space, not really facing each other, not really looking away.
Finally, Nathan commented, "You're going to have
to talk to BJ some time, you know. How long are planning on avoiding him? And how about your parents? They'll certainly have to know
if you're positive."
"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. If I get to it. There's still some hope,
you know."
"If. Right. That's what I said. But what about BJ, then? I mean, he's probably feeling as
badly as you do right now, don't you think? If he was worried enough to call
me... Whatcha gonna do?"
"Hell, I don't know. I just can't face him now.
Not until I at least know whether, you know... If there's
anything to talk about. I mean, for-"
"Number eighty-four?" a nurse broke in.
"Right this way, please."
I glanced at the number. Eighty-four.
The moment of truth. "Can Nathan come, too?"
I asked, indicating him.
"Of course. Come on back, boys." She led them to a room set
up for taking blood, where another nurse explained to them what would happen.
"Now, which one of you is being tested, or are
both of you?" I raised my hand about two inches mutely. "Okay,
great." She directed her words at me, pretty much ignoring Nathan. “I'm
assuming that the intercourse took place less than two months ago. In that
case, we'll need to do two tests to be sure of a negative result. We'll take a
blood sample today, and label it with the date and your number. We'll have the
result from that within 45 minutes, if you're willing to wait here that long,
or you can come back in a day or two to get your preliminary result. We'll give
you a signed piece of paper with your number and the date on it, so we can
identify you when you come back in. It's very important that you keep the paper
safe, so that we can identify you, or we'll have to start the process over. We
do it this way instead of taking your name to keep the results completely
anonymous.” She took a breath and looked at us to make sure we were following
what she was saying. “If the test comes back negative, you'll have to wait
another two months and come back again. We'll go through the same procedure, keeping
your number the same, of course, and if that also comes back negative, then
there is above a 95% chance that you do not have the human immunodeficiency
virus. Either way, we will delete your file the day you pick up your final test
results, or six months from now, whichever comes first. If you do have a
positive result, we have counselors that we can refer you to, and we strongly
that recommend that you take advantage of this free and very helpful resource.
Do you have any questions before I draw the blood sample? Tell me if you have
major problems with having your blood drawn."
"No, I don't." I glanced over at Nathan.
"So that means I won't have a result for sure for two months?"
"I'm afraid you won't. Oh, and you must of
course refrain from any behavior that could give you HIV during the interim, or
we'd have to start the process over for the results to be valid. Unless, of
course, you receive positive results from this test, in which case you would
know immediately, but that is unlikely."
"Oh," was all I could say to that.
"Are you ready, then?" The nurse wiped my
arm with an alcohol saturated cotton pad to sterilize the area, then pulled out
a needle and quickly drew the sample. "There you go! All
done." She put a cotton ball on the spot, then
covered it with a bandage.
"You can wait in the lobby and we'll call your
number again in forty-five minutes or less, or you can go home and come back
tomorrow or the next day. Which would you boys prefer?"
Nathan answered for me this time, seeing, I guess,
how impatient I was. "We'll wait here."
"Okay, great. We'll call you soon. And here is
your identification paper." She signed the sheet with a flourish, then handed it to me. "Have a nice day, boys!"
A nice day. Right. Because everyone who
goes for HIV testing is just having a wonderful day, I’m sure. I don’t know why
I’m not grinning from ear to ear.
We walked back to the lobby, but there was someone
else on the couch, so we sat next to each other in stiff wooden chairs.
"You sure you don't mind waiting?" I asked
Nathan.
"Nah, it's okay. I'd want to know as soon as
possible if it were me."
"Yeah. Even if it doesn't really mean
anything."
"Yeah."
After a moment of worrying to myself, I said,
"That means I have to talk to BJ, you know. Before I
find out for sure.”
"Yeah. I don't know what to say, man. Can I help?"
"Nah. I might as well call him now. I'll go out just in
front of the doors. You stay in here and see if they call me, okay?"
"Sure. I'm sure it'll go okay. Good luck."
I raised my hand slightly in goodbye as I walked out
the door, dialing BJ on my cell phone. What on earth was I going to say to him?
"Guess what, our condom tore"? The phone rang once, twice, three
times before I reached his answering machine and heard BJ’s voice saying, "Hiya,
this is BJ. If you've got somethin' to say, say it." Beeeeeep.
"Hey, BJ. It's me. I hope you don't have anyone listening over
your shoulder. I'm sorry I didn't call you back sooner, I've been pretty messed
up. I'm actually calling from the lobby of some anonymous HIV testing place.
They said I'll get the results to this first test back in under an hour, but
they probably won't really mean anything, and then I have to come back two
months later to have a second test. I’ll only know I’m actually negative if
both this test and that one come back negative. And...
oh, I don't know, man. Never mind. I'll keep you up to
date on all of this. Oh, and the nurse said I couldn't have sex at all until
after the second test, which sucks. But on the other hand, if I managed to
escape this time, we'd better be even safer in the future, which probably means
no sex at all. At least not until I get my brain around this. Wow, I've really
been rambling on. Sorry about that. I'll go now, and I'll try again to call you
later, I guess. Bye!"
I went back inside. "Answering machine," I
told Nathan briefly. I didn’t really want to talk about it. "I don't
suppose they've called us yet?"
"Yeah, they have. I was about to go out and get
you. Come on."
Nathan went up to the desk. "We're number
eighty-four." I showed the receptionist the slip of paper.
"Here you are," said the receptionist.
"Negative. Come back in three months for the follow up, and we'll keep
your results on file until you get the final results or for six months from
today, whichever is less. Good luck!"
"Thanks." I sighed. Negative. Well, there's
still hope. We walked back to Nathan's car, and he dropped me off at my house.
"Hi, Mom!" I said, forcing a smile.
"Hello, dear! Where did you go? Did you eat anything?"
"Nah, I didn't eat anything, but I'll definitely
have some dinner. I'm starving! I creamed Nathan at one-on-one," I
answered, and turned to go to his room.
"I'm so glad you're feeling better," she
called up at him.
"Yeah, I
am. Much better. No need to worry." No need at
all...